The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity

On-line since: 21st October, 2006

THE KNOWLEDGE OF FREEDOM(SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY)

iv

THE WORLD AS PERCEPTION

CONCEPTS AND IDEAS
arise through thinking. What a concept is cannot be
stated in words. Words can do no more than draw attention to our concepts.
When someone sees a tree, his thinking reacts to his observation, an ideal
counterpart is added to the object, and he considers the object and the
ideal counterpart as belonging together. When the object disappears from his
field of observation, only the ideal counterpart of it remains. This latter
is the concept of the object. The further our range of experience is
widened, the greater becomes the sum of our concepts. But a concept is never
found isolated. Concepts combine to form a totality built up according to
inherent laws. The concept “organism” combines, for example, with those of
“gradual development, growth.” Other concepts formed of single objects merge
completely. All concepts that I form of lions, merge into the general
concept “lion.” In this way the single concepts unite in an enclosed
conceptual system, in which each concept has its special place. Ideas are
not qualitatively different from concepts. They are but concepts that are
richer in content, more saturated and comprehensive. At this particular point
I must draw special attention to the fact that thinking is my point of
departure, and not concepts and ideas which must first be gained
by means of thinking. Concepts and ideas already presuppose thinking.
Therefore, what I have said about the nature of thinking, that it exists
through itself, that it is determined by nothing but itself, cannot simply
be carried over and applied to concepts. (I mention this at this point
explicitly because it is here that my difference with Hegel lies. For Hegel,
the concept is the primary and original.)

The concept cannot be gained from observation. This can already be seen from
the fact that the growing human being slowly and gradually forms concepts
corresponding to the objects surrounding him. The concepts are added to
observation.

A much-read contemporary philosopher,
Herbert Spencer,
[ 23 ]
describes the mental process which we carry out in response to observation,
in the following way:

“If, when walking through the fields one day in September, we hear a sound a
few yards in advance, and, on observing the ditch-side where it occurs, see
the grass move, we shall probably turn toward the spot to learn by what this
sound and motion are produced. As we approach, a partridge flutters in the
ditch; on seeing this our curiosity is satisfied; we have what we call an
explanation of the phenomena. This explanation, please notice, amounts to
this: Because we have experienced countless times in life that a disturbance
of the stationary position of small bodies is accompanied by the movement of
other bodies existing among them, and because we have therefore generalized
the relation between such disturbances and such movements, we consider this
particular disturbance explained as soon as we find it to be an example of
just this relationship.”
[ 24 ]

A closer examination gives a very different result from what is described
above. When I hear a sound, the first thing I do is to find the concept that
corresponds to this observation. It is this concept that takes me beyond the
sound. Someone who did not reflect further would simply hear the sound and
be content with that. But, because I reflect, it becomes clear to me that I
have to understand the sound as an effect. It is therefore only when I
connect the concept of effect with the perception of the sound that
I am induced to go beyond the single observation and look for the cause.
The concept of effect calls up that of cause; I then look for the object which
is the cause, and in this case I find it to be the partridge. But these
concepts, cause and effect, I can never gain by mere observation, however
many instances I may have observed. Observation calls up thinking, and it is
thinking that then shows me how to fit one individual occurrence to another.

If one demands of a “strictly objective science” that it must take its
content from observation alone, then one must at the same time require that
it is to desist from all thinking. For by its very nature, thinking goes
beyond the observed object.

We must now pass from thinking itself to the being who thinks, for it is
through the thinker that thinking is combined with observation. Human
consciousness is the stage upon which concept and observation meet one
another and become united. In saying this, we have at the same time
characterized human consciousness. It is the mediator between thinking and
observation. Insofar as the human being observes an object, it appears to
him as given; insofar as he thinks, he appears to himself as active. He
regards what comes to meet him as object, and himself as thinking
subject. While he directs his thinking to the observation, he is
conscious of the object; while he directs his thinking to himself he is
conscious of himself, or is self-conscious. Human consciousness of
necessity, must be self-conscious at the same time, because it is a
thinking consciousness. For when thinking turns its attention to
its own activity, then its own essential being, that is, its subject, is
its object as well.

It must, however, not be overlooked that it is only with the help of
thinking that we can define ourselves as subject and contrast ourselves with
objects. For this reason, thinking must never be understood as a merely
subjective activity. Thinking is beyond subject and object. It forms
these two concepts, just as it forms all others. When therefore as thinking
subject, we refer a concept to an object, we must not understand this
reference as something merely subjective. It is not the subject that makes
the reference, but thinking. The subject does not think because it is
subject; rather it appears to itself as a subject because it is able to
think. The activity carried out by man as a thinking being is, therefore,
not a merely subjective activity. Rather it is neither subjective nor
objective; it is an activity that goes beyond both these concepts. I ought
never to say that my individual subject thinks; in fact, my subject exists
by the very grace of thinking. Thinking, therefore, is an element that takes
me beyond myself and unites me with the objects. Yet at the same time it
separates me from them, inasmuch as it sets me, as subject, over against
them.

Man's twofold nature is due to this: he thinks, and in so doing encompasses
himself and the rest of the world; but at the same time, it is also by means
of thinking that he defines himself as an individual who confronts the
objects.

The next step is to ask ourselves: How does the other element, — that in
consciousness meets with thinking — which we have so far simply called
the object of observation, enter our consciousness?

In order to answer this question, we must separate from our field of
observation all that has been brought into it by thinking. For the content
of our consciousness at any moment is already permeated with concepts in the
most varied ways.

We must imagine a being with fully developed human intelligence suddenly
waking into existence out of nothing, and confronting the world. Everything
of which it was aware before its thinking activity began, would be the pure
content of observation. The world would then reveal to this being nothing
but the mere disconnected aggregate of objects of sensation: colors,
sounds, sensations of pressure, warmth, taste and smell, then feelings of
pleasure and displeasure. This aggregate is the content of pure, unthinking
observation. Over against it stands thinking, ready to unfold its activity
if a point of attack can be found. Experience soon shows that it is found.
Thinking is able to draw threads from one element of observation to another.
It connects definite concepts with these elements and thereby brings about a
relationship between them. We have already seen above how a sound that comes
to meet us is connected with another observation by our identifying the
former as the effect of the latter.

If we now remind ourselves that the activity of thinking is never to be
understood as a subjective activity, then we shall not be tempted to believe
that such relationships, established by thinking, have merely a subjective
value.

Our next task is to discover by means of thinking reflection what relation
the above-mentioned directly given content of observation has to our
conscious subject.

The varied ways of using words make it necessary for me to come to an
agreement with my readers concerning the use of a word which I shall have to
employ in what follows. I shall use the word perceptions for the
immediate objects of sensation enumerated above, insofar as the conscious
subject becomes aware of them through observation. It is therefore not the
process of observation, but the object of observation which I call
perception.
[ 25 ]

I do not choose the word sensation because in physiology this has a
definite meaning which is narrower than that of my concept of perception. I
can call a feeling in myself a perception, but not a sensation in the
physiological sense. But I also become aware of my feelings by their becoming
perceptions for me. And the way we become aware of our thinking through
observation is such that we can also call thinking, as it first comes to the
notice of our consciousness, a perception.

The naive man considers his perceptions, in the sense in which they directly
seem to appear to him, as things having an existence completely independent
of himself. When he sees a tree he believes, to begin with, that it stands
in the form which he sees, with the colors of its various parts, etc., there
on the spot toward which his gaze is directed. When in the morning he sees
the sun appear as a disk on the horizon and follows the course of this disk,
his opinion is that all this actually exists (by itself) and occurs just as
he observes it. He clings to this belief until he meets with further
perceptions which contradict those he first had. The child who has as yet no
experience of distance grasps at the moon, and does not correct his first
impression as to the real distance until a second perception contradicts the
first. Every extension of the circle of my perceptions compels me to correct
my picture of the world. We see this in everyday life, as well as in the
intellectual development of mankind. That picture which the ancients made
for themselves of the relation of the earth to the sun and to the other
heavenly bodies had to be replaced through Copernicus by a different one,
because theirs did not accord with perceptions which were unknown in those
early times. A man who had been born blind said, when operated on by
Dr. Franz,
[ 25a ]
that the idea of the size of objects which he had formed by his sense
of touch before his operation, was a very different one. He had to correct
his tactual perceptions by his visual perceptions.

Why are we compelled to make these constant corrections of our observations?

A simple reflection will answer this question. When I stand at one end of an
avenue, the trees at the far end seem smaller and nearer together than those
where I stand. The picture of my perception changes when I change the place
from which I am looking. The form in which it appears to me, therefore, is
dependent on a condition which belongs not to the object, but to me, the
perceiver. It is all the same to the avenue where I stand. But the picture
of it which I receive depends essentially on the place where I stand.' In
the same way, it is all the same to the sun and the planetary system that
human beings happen to consider them from the earth; but the
perception-picture of the heavens which human beings have is determined by
the fact that they inhabit the earth. This dependence of our
perception-picture upon our place of observation is the easiest one to
grasp. Matters already become more difficult when we learn how our
perceptions are dependent on our bodily and spiritual organization. The
physicist shows us that within the space in which we hear a sound,
vibrations of the air occur, and also that in the body in which we seek the
origin of the sound, vibrating movements of its parts will be found. We
perceive this movement as sound, but only if we have a normally constructed
ear. Without this, the whole world would be forever silent for us. From
physiology we know that there are people who perceive nothing of the
splendor of color surrounding us. Their perception-picture shows only
degrees of light and dark. Others are blind to one color, e.g., red. Their
picture of the world lacks this shade of color, and therefore is actually a
different one from that of the average person. I would call the dependence
of my perception-picture on my place of observation, a mathematical one, and
its dependence on my organization a qualitative one. The first determines
the proportions of size and mutual distances of my perceptions, the second
their quality. The fact that I see a red surface as red — this qualitative
determination — depends on the organization of my eye.

My perception-pictures, then, are subjective to begin with. Knowledge of the
subjective character of our perceptions may easily lead to doubt that there
is any objective basis for them at all. If we know that a perception, for
example, that of the color red or of a certain tone, is not possible without
a specific structure of our organism, it is easy to believe that it has no
existence at all apart from our subjective organization, that without the
act of perceiving — the objective of which it is — it would have
no kind of existence. This view found a classical exponent in
George Berkeley.
[ 26 ]
His opinion was that man, from the moment he realizes the significance the
subject has for perception, is no longer able to believe in the presence of
a world without the conscious spirit. He said:

“Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need only
open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, viz., that
all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth — in a word, all those
bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world — have not any
subsistence without a mind; that their being is to be perceived or known;
that, consequently, so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not
exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have
no existence at all or else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit.”

According to this view, nothing remains of the perception, if one
disregards the fact of its being perceived. There is no color
when none is seen, no sound when none is heard. Apart from the act of
perception, extension, form and motion exist as little as do color and
sound. Nowhere do we see bare extension or form; these are always connected
with color or some other quality unquestionably dependent on our
subjectivity. If these latter disappear when our perception of them
disappears, then the former, being bound up with them, must likewise
disappear.

To the objection that even if figure, color, sound, etc., have no other
existence than the one within the act of perception, yet there must be
things that exist apart from consciousness and to which the conscious
perception pictures are similar, the above view would answer that a color can
be similar only to a color, a figure only to a figure. Our perceptions can
be similar only to our perceptions, and to nothing else. What we call an
object is also nothing but a collection of perceptions which are connected
in a particular way. If I strip a table of its form, extension, color, etc.,
— in short, of all that is only my perception — then nothing else
remains. If this view is followed to its logical conclusion, it leads to the
assertion that the objects of my perceptions are present only through me
and, indeed, only in as far as, and as long as I perceive them. They
disappear with the act of perceiving them, and have no meaning apart from
it. But apart from my perceptions I know of no objects and cannot know of any.

No objection can be made to this assertion as long as in general I merely
take into account the fact that the perception is partially determined by
the organization of my subject. It would be very different if we were able
to estimate what function our perceiving has in bringing about a perception.
We should then know what happens to the perception during the act of
perceiving, and could also determine how much of it must already have
existed before it was perceived.

This leads us to turn our consideration from the object of perception to its
subject. I perceive not only other things; I also perceive myself. The
immediate content of the perception of myself is the fact that I am the
stable element in contrast to the continually coming and going
perception-pictures. The perception of the I can always come up in my
consciousness while I am having other perceptions. When I am absorbed in the
perception of an object that is given, then, for the time being, I am
conscious only of this object. To this, the perception of my self can come.
I am then conscious, not only of the object, but also of my own personality,
which confronts the object and observes it. I do not merely see a tree, but
I also know that it is I who see it. I also realize that something takes
place in me while I observe the tree. When the tree disappears from my field
of vision, an after-effect of this process remains in my consciousness: an
image of the tree. This image became united with my self during my
observation. My self has become enriched; its content has taken a new
element into itself. This element I call my representation of the tree.
I should never be in a position to speak of representations if I did not
experience them in the perception of my own self. Perceptions would come and
go; I should let them slip by. Only because I perceive my self, and am aware
that with each perception the content of my self also changes, do I find
myself compelled to bring the observation of the object into connection with
the changes in my own condition, and to speak of my representation.

I perceive the representation in my self in the same sense as I perceive
color, sound, etc., in other objects. Now I am also able to make the
distinction that I call those other objects that confront me, outer
world, whereas the content of my self-perception I call inner world.
Misunderstanding of the relationship between representation and object has
led to the greatest mistakes in modern philosophy. The perception of a
change in us, the modification experienced in the self, has been thrust into
the foreground and the object which causes this modification is lost sight
of altogether. It is said: We do not perceive the objects, but only our
representations. I am supposed to know nothing of the table in itself, which
is the object of my observation, but only of the changes which occur in my
self while I perceive the table. This view should not be confused with that
of Berkeley, mentioned above. Berkeley maintains the subjective nature of
the content of perceptions, but he does not say that I can know only of my
own representations. He limits man's knowledge to his representations
because, in his opinion, there are no objects outside the act of
representing. What I regard as a table is no longer present, according to
Berkeley, when I cease to turn my gaze toward it. This is why Berkeley lets
our perceptions arise directly out of the omnipotence of God. I see a table
because God calls up this perception in me. For Berkeley, therefore, there
are no real beings other than God and human spirits. What we call “world” is
present only within spirits. For Berkeley, what the naive man calls outer
world, or physical nature, is not there. This view is contrasted by the now
predominant Kantian
[ 27 ]
view which limits our knowledge to our representation
not because it is convinced that there cannot be things in existence besides
these representations, but because it believes us to be so organized that we
can experience only the modification in our own self, not the
thing-in-itself that causes this modification. This conclusion arises from
the view that I know only my representations, not that there is no existence
apart from them, but only that the subject cannot take such an existence
directly into itself; all it can do is merely through

This view believes it expresses something absolutely certain, something that
is immediately obvious, in need of no proof.

“The first fundamental principle which the philosopher has to bring to clear
consciousness consists in the recognition that our knowledge, to begin
with, does not reach beyond our representations. Our representation is
the only thing we experience and learn to know directly and, just because
we have direct experience of it, even the most radical doubt cannot rob us of
our knowledge. By contrast, the knowledge that goes beyond our representations
— taking this expression here in the widest possible sense, so that all
physical happenings are included in it — is open to doubt. Hence, at
the very beginning of all philosophizing, all knowledge which goes beyond
representations must explicitly be set down as being open to doubt.”

These are the opening sentences of
Volkelt's book on Kant's
Theory of Knowledge.
[ 29 ]
What is put forward here as an immediate and self-evident truth is in
reality the result of a line of thought which runs as follows: The naive man
believes that the objects, just as he perceives them, are also present
outside his consciousness. Physics, physiology and psychology, however, seem
to show that for our perceptions our organization is necessary and that,
therefore, we cannot know about anything except what our organization
transmits to us from the objects. Our perceptions therefore are
modifications of our organization, not things-in-themselves. The train of
thought here indicated has, in fact, been characterized by
Eduard von Hartmann
[ 30 ]
as the one which must lead to the conviction that we can have a
direct knowledge only of our own representations.
[ 31 ]
Outside our organisms we
find vibrations of physical bodies and of air; these are sensed by us as
sounds, and therefore it is concluded that what we call sound is nothing but
a subjective reaction of our organisms to these movements in the external
world. In the same way, color and warmth are found to be merely
modifications of our organisms. And, indeed, the view is held that these two
kinds of perceptions are called forth in us through effects or processes in
the external world which are utterly different from the experiences we have
of warmth or of color. If these processes stimulate the nerves in my skin, I
have the subjective perception of warmth; if they happen to encounter the
optic nerve, I perceive light and color. Light, color and warmth, then, are
the responses of my sensory nerves to external stimuli. Even the sense of
touch does not reveal to me the objects of the outer world, but only
conditions in myself. In the sense of modern physics, one must imagine that
bodies consist of infinitely small particles, molecules, and that these
molecules are not in direct contact, but are at certain distances from one
another. Between them, therefore, is empty space. Across this space they act
on one another by attraction and repulsion. If I put my hand on a body, the
molecules of my hand by no means touch those of the body directly, but there
remains a certain distance between body and hand, and what I sense as the
body's resistance is nothing other than the effect of the force of repulsion
which its molecules exert on my hand. I am completely external to the body
and perceive only its effects upon my organism.

These considerations have been supplemented by the theory of the so-called
specific nervous energy, which has been advanced by
J. Müller (1801-1858).
[ 32 ]
According to this theory, each sense has the peculiarity that it responds to
all external stimuli in one definite way only. If the optic nerve is
stimulated, perception of light results, irrespective of whether the nerve
is stimulated by what we call light, or by a mechanical pressure, or an
electric current. On the other hand, the same external stimulus applied to
different senses gives rise to different perceptions. This appears to show
that our sense-organs can transmit only what occurs in themselves, but
nothing from the external world. They determine our perceptions, each
according to its own nature.

Physiology also shows that there is no question of a direct knowledge of
what the objects cause to take place in our sense-organs. When the
physiologist traces the processes in our bodies, he discovers that already
in the sense organs, the effects of the external vibrations are modified in
the most manifold ways. This can be seen most clearly in the case of the eye
and ear. Both are very complicated organs which modify the external stimulus
considerably before they conduct it to the corresponding nerve. From the
peripheral end of the nerve the already modified stimulus is then led
further to the brain. Here at last the central organs are stimulated in
their turn. From this the conclusion is drawn that the external process must
have undergone a series of transformations before it reaches consciousness.
What goes on in the brain is connected by so many intermediate processes
with the external process, that any similarity to the latter is unthinkable.
What the brain ultimately transmits to the soul is neither external
processes nor processes in the sense-organs, but only such as occur in the
brain. But even these are not directly perceived by the soul; what we
finally have in consciousness are not brain processes at all, but
sensations. My sensation of red has absolutely no similarity to
the process which occurs in the brain when I sense the red. The red is caused
by the processes in the brain and appears again only as an effect of this in
the soul. This is why Hartmann says:
[ 33 ]
“What the subject perceives therefore is
always only modifications of his own psychic states and nothing else.” When
I have sensations, these are as yet far from being grouped into what I
perceive as objects. For only single sensations can be transmitted to me by
the brain. The sensations of hardness and softness are transmitted to me by
the sense of touch, those of color and light by the sense of sight. Yet all
these can be found united in one and the same object. The unification must,
therefore, be caused by the soul itself; this means that the soul combines
into bodies the separate sensations transmitted through the brain. My brain
gives me separately and indeed along very different paths, the sensations of
sight, touch and hearing, which the soul then combines into the
representation “trumpet.” This last link (the representation of trumpet) is
the very first process to enter my consciousness. In it can no longer be
found anything of what is outside of me and originally made an impression on
my senses. The external object has been entirely lost on the way to the
brain and through the brain to the soul.

In the history of man's intellectual endeavor it would be hard to find
another edifice of thought which has been put together with greater
ingenuity and yet which, on closer analysis, collapses into nothing. Let us
look a little closer at the way it has been built up. The starting point is
taken from what is given in naive consciousness, that is, from things as
perceived. Then it is shown that nothing of what belongs to these things
would be present for us had we no senses. No eye: no color. Therefore, the
color is not yet present in what affects the eye. It arises first through
the interaction of the eye and the object. The latter must, therefore, be
colorless. But neither is the color present in the eye, for what is present
there is a chemical or physical process which first has to be led by the
optic nerve to the brain, and there releases another process. This is not
yet the color. The latter is only called up in the soul through the process
in the brain. As yet it does not enter my consciousness, but is first placed
by the soul on a body outside. Here, finally, I believe that I perceive it.
We have completed a circle. We are conscious of a colored object. This is
the starting point; here the building up of thoughts begins. If I had no
eye, for me the object would be colorless. I cannot, therefore, place the
color on the body. I start on a search for it. I look for it in the eye: in
vain; in the nerve: in vain; in the brain: in vain once more; in the soul:
here I find it indeed, but not attached to the body. I recover the colored
body only there at the point from which I started. The circle is closed. I
am confident that I recognize as a product of my soul what the naive man
imagines to be present out there in space.

As long as one remains here, everything seems to fit beautifully. But we
must start again from the beginning. Until now I have been dealing with the
outer perception, of which earlier, as naive man, I had a completely wrong
opinion. I believed that just as I perceive it, it had an objective
existence. But now I have noticed that in the act of representing it, it
disappears; that it is only a modification of my soul condition. Is there
any justification for using it as a starting point in my consideration? Can
I say of it that it affects my soul? From now on I have to treat the table,
of which earlier I believed that it acted on me and brought about in me a
representation of itself, as being itself a representation. From this it
follows logically that my sense-organs and the processes in them are also
mere subjective manifestations. I have no right to speak of a real eye, but
only of my representation of eye. And the same holds good in regard to the
nerves and the brain process, and no less in regard to what takes place in
the soul itself, through which, out of the chaos of manifold sensations,
objects are supposed to be built up. If I run through the steps of my act of
cognition once more, presupposing the first line of thought to be correct,
then the latter shows itself to be a web of representations which, as such,
could not act upon one another. I cannot say: My representation of the
object affects my representation of the eye, and from this interaction the
representation of color comes about. Nor is there any need for saying this,
for as soon as it is clear to me that my sense-organs and their activity,
and my nerve and soul processes as well, can also be given only through
perception, then the described line of thought shows itself in its full
impossibility. It is true that I can have no perception without the
corresponding sense organ, but neither can I have the sense-organ without
perception. From my perception of the table I can go over to the eye which
sees it, and to the nerves in the skin which touch it, but what takes place
in these I can, again, leam only from perception. And there I soon notice
that in the process which takes place in the eye there is no trace of
similarity to what I perceive as color. I cannot deny the existence of my
color perception by pointing to the process which takes place in the eye
during this perception. And just as little can I find the color in the nerve
and brain processes; all I do is only add new perceptions, within the
organism, to the first perception, which the naive man placed outside his
organism. I simply pass from one perception to another.

Apart from this there is an error in the whole conclusion of the line of
thought. I am able to follow what takes place in my organism up to the
processes in my brain, even though my assumptions become more and more
hypothetical the nearer I get to the central processes in the brain. But the
path of observation from outside ceases with what takes place in my
brain, ceases, in fact, with what I should observe if I could treat the brain
with the assistance and methods of physics and chemistry. The path of
observation from within begins with the sensation and continues up to
the building up of objects out of the material of sensation. In the transition
from brain-process to sensation, there is a gap in the path of observation.

This characteristic way of thinking, which describes itself as critical
idealism, in contrast to the standpoint of naive consciousness which it
calls naive realism, makes the mistake of characterizing one perception
as representation while taking another in the very same sense as does the naive
realism which it apparently refutes. Critical idealism wants to prove that
perceptions have the character of representations; in this attempt it accepts
— in naive fashion — the perceptions belonging to the organism as
objective, valid facts, and, what is more, fails to see that it mixes up two
spheres of observation, between which it can find no mediation.

Critical idealism is able to refute naive realism only by itself assuming,
in naive-realistic fashion, that one's own organism has objective existence.
As soon as the critical idealist becomes conscious of the complete
similarity between the perceptions connected with one's own organism and
those which naive realism assumes to have objective existence, he can no
longer rely on the perceptions of the organism as being a safe foundation.
He would have to regard his own subjective organization also as a mere
complex of representations. But then the possibility ceases of regarding the
content of the perceived world as a product of man's spiritual organization.
One would have to assume that the representation “color” was only a
modification of the representation “eye.” So-called critical idealism cannot
be proved without borrowing something from naive realism. Naive realism can
only be refuted by accepting its assumptions — without testing them
— in another sphere.

This much, then, is certain: Investigations within the sphere of perceptions
cannot prove critical idealism, and consequently cannot strip perceptions of
their objective character.

Still less can the principle, “The perceived world is my
representation,” be stated as if it were obvious and in need of no proof.
Schopenhauer
[ 34 ]
begins his principal work, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,
The World as Will and Representation, with the words:

“The world is my representation — this is a truth which holds good for
every being that lives and cognizes, though man alone is able to bring it into
reflective, abstract consciousness. If he really does this, then he has
attained to philosophical selfconsciousness. It then becomes clear and
certain to him that he does not know a sun or an earth, but always only an
eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world which
surrounds him is only there as representation, that means throughout only in
relation to something else, to the one who represents, that is, to himself.
If ever a truth can be asserted a priori, this one can, for it expresses
the form most general of all possible and thinkable experiences, more general
than time, or space, or causality, for all these presuppose it ...”

The principle above: “The world is my representation,” on which this is
based, is, however, wrecked by the fact, already mentioned, that the eye and
the hand are perceptions in just the same sense as the sun and the earth.
And if one used Schopenhauer's expressions in his own sense, one could
object to his principle: My eye that sees the sun and my hand that feels the
earth are my representations, just like the sun and the earth themselves.
But that, with this, the principle is canceled out, is immediately obvious.
For only my real eye and my real hand could have the representations “sun”
and “earth” as their modifications; my representations “eye” and “hand”
cannot have them. But critical idealism can speak of representations only.

It is impossible by means of critical idealism to gain insight into what
relation perception has to representation. It is insensible to the
distinction, mentioned on page 85, of what happens to the perception while
perceiving takes place and what must be inherent in it before it is
perceived. We must, therefore, attempt to gain this insight along another
path.